When it comes to branding, one of the most important things you can do is be consistent. Slogans, logos, and all other associated brand information are usually kept the same in pitching your brand because it helps customers to form a relationship to your company. But Google, one of the biggest brands around, consistently breaks this rule when it comes to its logo. Instead, Google has embraced something called the Google Doodle – unique logos that change frequently to mark major holidays, cultural figures, and other civic events.
Recent Google Doodles
Google Doodles are extremely popular with Google’s audience. Recent doodles have included an animated doodle celebrating Maurice Sendak, the author of the popular children’s book Where The Wild Things Are, the birthday of the inventor of the petri dish, and a multi-tasking doodle celebrating Mother’s Day. Google even introduces unique doodles for different countries. Recent doodles have celebrated Paraguay’s independence day, Jordan’s independence day, and the Dragon Boat festival in China, Singapore, and several other southeast Asian countries.
Brand Recognition
So how does Google get away with this kind of creative branding? Google feels confident that its brand is strong enough to be recognizable, even when most of the letters in its name are missing or in a strange format. People arriving on the Google home page recognize that Google uses these creative logos and don’t make the mistake of thinking that they’ve arrived at the wrong page. Google has even marketed these doodles in their own right, encouraging people to make their own Google doodle.
Google Doodles As Marketing Tool
For Google, the doodle logos that decorate their web page are actually a marketing tool in their own right. People will log on just to see an exciting new doodle, even if they have nothing in mind to search for. Google even amplifies this popularity by creating interactive doodles that their users can play with. One particularly notable interactive doodle was the one that celebrated Les Paul’s birthday, which consisted of a guitar that users could actually strum. This type of interactive doodle encourages users to think of the doodle as a fun extension of the brand that they actively look forward to.
The Unbeatable Google Brand
Google’s use of the doodle is decidedly daring in a world where consistent branding is king, but Google is a big enough brand that people can understand a string of six circular petri dishes as reading “Google,” as seen with the simplistic design celebrating the inventor of the petri dish. Letters have become almost superfluous to the Google brand. That’s a level of recognition that others just can’t compete with. You might not be a Fortune 500 company, but take a page from Google’s playbook and don’t be afraid to play around a bit!
What’s your favorite Google doodle? Tell us in the comments!